Reaction: 'Pirates with Potential' Power Poole Through

Poole 'Wessex Marine' Pirates secured their place in the Cab Direct KO Cup semi-finals after successfully defending most of their nine point first leg lead, against the Edinburgh Monarchs

Although the Scottish capital side won the second leg through a 5-1 in the last heat leg decider, Poole powered their way through with an aggregate score of 92-87, watched on by Northern team manager Gary Havelock who was playing an assistant role to Dan Ford on the night, both having seen Poole's lead slip to a single point after just four heats.

When asked if that was the stage that "Havvy" was ready to 'hit the panic button' he replied "Nope, it always seemed to be under control. I know we didn't get off to the best of starts but that can happen up here, you know, it is a specialist track, really technical and a few of our guys hadn't been here much, maybe one (time) if any and it took them a couple of races to really get going, but people like Toby (Tobias Thomsen) were fabulous. You know, to crash in his first ride and then run eight from his next three on a track that he hates, it was a good effort. Young Ben (Cook) as well. You know, Ben doesn't like this track and he went and stuck some very good times in there and it just kept us in it."
"The team seems to be blending in okay. It is difficult to say . Dan (Ford) said this is only our first away meeting because of rain-offs and things and we had only had two meetings altogether this year before tonight, so they haven't had a lot of time to gel really. But, if I was to say anything, based on years gone by, it is that this team has more potential than previous years. Years when we probably had more certainty with more guaranteed scoring power, whereas now we have a lot of young lads and you know, we don't have that guarantee scoring but this team really has a lot of potential and passion."

Poole's slow start to the meeting had them struggling to find a race winner in the first batch of rides but then the potential and passion, that Havelock referred to, kicked in and within the next six heats three Pirates had proudly bagged a brace of wins each with Tobias Thomsen really catching the eye and Tom Brennan going on to make it a hat-trick with a heat-sharing victory in heat twelve, that had left the Pirates needing just five more points to see them home.
Dane Thomsen admitted afterwards "I don't know what happened to be honest. This is one of the toughest places for me because we don't have anything like it back home so to go out there and do a paid eight, I'll take that.""I didn't feel comfortable in my first ride and the bike just didn't feel right to ride and I know how important this meeting was to Poole and so I told Danny that he should take me out of my rides and put in one of the quick boys. But then we changed a few things in the setups, reset the minds and went out again and it worked ,so, good job. I just did what I felt to the bike, put one sprocket up and a longer bike and it worked for me. It is a good boost for us with having to come back again in the league. I am strong mentally as a person in general but it is nice to turn things around like this on a night like this. So important for the team and so to go out there and do what I did tonight means a lot to me personally. And now we have Berwick tomorrow. I love a fast track and I know Berwick so I am looking forward to that for sure.

Scorers
EDINBURGH 47 (87) Josh Pickering 13 (3,2,2,3,3) ,Justin Sedgmen 10+1 (3,2,3,0,2') ,Michele Castagna 8 (3,1,2,2) ,Lasse Fredriksen 5+2 (2',1',2,0) ,Max James 4+1 (3,0,0,1') ,Kye Thomson 4+1 (1,0,1',2) ,Connor Coles 3+2 (0,1,1',1') POOLE 43 (92) Tom Brennan 11 (2,3,3,3,0) ,Ben Cook 10+1 (2,3,3,1',1) ,Tobias Thomsen 7+1 (0,3,3,1') ,Richard Lawson 7 (1,2,2,2) ,Zach Cook 5 (0,1,1,3) ,Sam Hagon 2 (2,0,0,0) ,Max Perry 1+1 (1',0,0,0)
 

Match repot and heat details here

• The Pirates open their league campaign at Berwick on Saturday (7pm) start when they will be unchanged, whilst the Bandits call upon Josh Pickering to guest for the injured Lewi Kerr, whilst recent Pirates Rory Schlein, Danyon Hume and in-form Drew Kemp all line up against their former club.